I love my Kiev !!

[shadowfox]

Great review, shadowfox. Looks like you've got a winner with the Helios as well. BTW, in the 4th picture down, the young lady is dining alone. Did you invite her for coffee? 😀

QUESTION: Did this K4am have an Oleg CLA? I've just sent off a Fed-1g for an Oleg CLA; it was brought to me by my son from the Yerevan flea market.

Mike!!! you trying to get me in trouble with my wife? 😀

This one came straight from seller altai on ebay, he's from a town in South Siberia (I can't remember the name). I don't know about CLA, from the looks of it, the camera probably didn't get used a lot.

 

[Wayne R. Scott]

COMMENT: Kievs are notorious for uneven negatives frame spacing. Mine occasionally, almost touch... but they never overlap.

Cheers, mike

On my Contax before cla the space between negatives was about the same width as a gnat's eyelash. The frames never overlapped and I could routinely get 38 shots on a 36 exposure roll of film. But it drove the modern film processer's nuts as they are set up for more space between frames. I think the Keiv's are following the Contax example. After a CLA the frame spacing on the Contax is similar to modern cameras.

Wayne

 

[shadowfox]

Jupiter 8 has a wonderful vintage look (Jupiter glow 😉 ) but the Helios 103 is sharp as hell: why do we buy Summicron at 20 the price of an Helios?

I'm so going to use this the next time someone brags about the expensive Leica glass.

Btw, that's a pretty shot of the Kiev, Marc!

 

[shadowfox]

On my Contax before cla the space between negatives was about the same width as a gnat's eyelash. The frames never overlapped and I could routinely get 38 shots on a 36 exposure roll of film. But it drove the modern film processer's nuts as they are set up for more space between frames. I think the Keiv's are following the Contax example. After a CLA the frame spacing on the Contax is similar to modern cameras.

Wayne

Wayne, where did you send yours for CLA?

 

[ruben]

I strongly recommend to my Kiev fellows to regard Sherer processed Contaxes with utmost respect, and Contaxes in generall too.

After reading parts of Mr Sherer site, although with my common sense critical approach, you can learn a lot about the Contax myth, for good and for bad, among them his assertion that only one among each three Contaxes out of factory were really working. As I already said before, in my opinion Mr Sherer is underpricing his exceptional work, and we can learn a lot about a Contax not CLA-ed by him.

By being objective and not jelous about Contaxes we can only gain. At the Kiev Project we will not end wih the same camera technical level, but definitely we are going to have what I may call Super Kievs. Not bad at all.

in my opinion, Kiev and Contax owners should abstain from throwing bravados at each other, and join forces instead. At the Kiev Project, the technical upgrading of our cameras is only one about many aspects. At the end of it, Contax users may find their way to a Kiev besides their Contax, and Kiev users may find their apetite increasing, and thus buying a Sherer Contax.



Cheers,
Ruben

PS
for the Kiev Project Outline, see
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40454